Golden Boy
by bread and coal
Summary: Some people are untouchable. A series of speculations centered around the Curtis brothers.
1. Chapter 1

_"What, art mad? A man may see how this world goes  
with no eyes. Look with thine ears: see how yond  
justice rails upon yond simple thief. Hark, in  
thine ear: change places; and, handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief?"_  
- William Shakespeare, King Lear Act IV: scene VI.

"Get in the car!"

"No!"

"Get in the _car_, Owen!"

"This is _bullshit_!" Owen screams. Owen is bleeding from the side of his head and his nose is broken, and he's standing there in the streetlight screaming at the darkness and looking for all the world like a psychopath.

And I've known Owen since he was about five years old, so even though I'm dizzy as hell and desperate for a beer I shove the door open and holler, "Owen, get in the car, damn it!"

And now Jimmy's yelling too, yelling at him to just please get in the goddamn car so we can go, because all the other cars except Mike Pastor's have already taken off and he pulls out as Owen starts to cry. I've seen Owen cry before, when he's drunk, so I just lean back against the leather and let Jesse take care of it.

"Owen, come on, man, we gotta go now, we'll take you to see Pam, you wanna see Pam, don't ya?" Jesse is the smartest guy I know and he's talking in a low, calm voice like something's wrong so I know something must be, aside from the fact that every few minutes I start tasting blood again and maybe I lost a tooth but I can't tell. I just wanna go. I just want to go and get drunk and forget this whole damn stupid night, and I realize suddenly that I hate Owen, I hate him because he's weak and stupid and he won't hurry up and get in the goddamn car already. So I lean out the window and tell him, very calmly, that if he doesn't get in the car I am going to kill him, and I mean it, and he can see that I mean it. He gets in the car.

He's crying, still, maybe because we lost, maybe because he's hurt, maybe because I really was going to kill him. But I lean back against the cool leather as Jimmy peels out and then it really hits me: we lost.

We lost.

No. We didn't lose. We didn't lose because if we lost we wouldn't be driving away in our cars with our _friends_, we'd be screaming like a bunch of damn animals in the mud and walking off to get smashed because we wouldn't have _cars _because we'd be _greasers _and _greasers always lose._

So they can all go straight to hell, for all I care.

I knew we would lose that fight from the moment I saw that stupid kid, that stupid Curtis kid, the real little one who's friend knifed Bob. Because there was no way in blue hell Darrel was gonna let that little shit get hurt. That little- what's-his-name with his big scared eyes and a jaw just like his brother's. I hate my life.

What the hell was his name?

_Pony_, I remember, and suddenly I can hear Abby laughing at me, laughing as we pulled up to Darrel's house on a warm Friday evening and I remember.

Abby was giggling. Abby was always giggling. "Ponyboy? What kind of name is _Ponyboy_?"

"What kind of name is _Abigail_?"

"Abigail," she said smartly, "is a biblical name."

"So's Ponyboy." I said, deadpan.

"_Ponyboy_ is not in the _bible_."

"Sure it is. It's in one a them real long lists a names…and Jebediah begat Hezekiah, who begat Ebeidiah, who begat Zonadiah, who begat Ponyboy, who begat…Frank, who begat Jebediah, who- well, you know, it just kinda goes in a circle from there."

"Paul, you're an idiot."

"Go on and prove me wrong."

"Shut up." She said, as Darrel got in the car. She waved to him and we nodded to each other, but I always liked arguing with Abby so I kept on:

"You can't, can ya? Aw, and your daddy would be ashamed to hear it. Preacher's daughter can't even prove Ponyboy ain't in the bible."

"I don't _have _to prove it, Paul, because no one would be dumb enough to believe it's in there."

"It is there." Darrel said flatly, and I grinned over my shoulder. Grinned cause we were stupid and seventeen and everything was perfect.

Now Abby wasn't the brightest girl in the world or nothing, but she knew better than to try and argue with Darrel and me both. "Y'all are hopeless."

I already knew that, so I ignored her. Darrel spoke up. "Where's Thelma?" Thelma Porter, my Lord, there was a looker. Smart girl, too. She's married to some guy down south now, probably prancing around a southern mansion bothering the maids. Nosy little broad.

"We're picking her up at Hazel Peterson's house. Her Daddy don't like them Curtis boys," I said, but we all laughed because that was a damn lie. Every single father of ever single girl in that school would have been proud to have his daughter on the arm of the captain of the football team.

Co-captain.

"Owen, _shut up_!" Somebody starts yelling and I snap back to here and now and blood and noise and Jesse, thank Christ for Jesse, pressing a beer into my hand. Must have snaked some of his old man's.

Owen's crying quietly and I feel sick at the sound, but Jesse's handling it, talking to him, real calm. It was Jimmy who yelled. I look at the back of his sandy brown hair and know he's pissed because a) Bob was his friend and b) Jesse won't give him any beer while we're driving. Like I said before, thank Christ for Jesse Harris.

Harris. Harris. Kenny Harris. Oh God. I'd forgotten about that time, that time back when we were at practice after school and…what the hell is wrong with me, I don't know. I drink the whole beer and go for another one, just to get rid of the awful taste of blood. Fist against my face. I love how everything goes so fast in a fight that you can't tell how much time really passed, it's all fists and teeth and feet and Darrel Curtis going down hard, my old best friend laughing at me as I trip over my own feet and fall into a world of mud and cheerleaders and blood. Was there blood?  
I don't remember.

But I do, I do remember, that's the killer. That's the catch.

Football. High school. My last year, the king of the field, the king of the school.

Co-king.

Practice. "Come on, man, hit him!" Darrel was furious, huge, terrifying to this cocky little brat who was trying to look so cool. Jesse's little brother. Kenny Harris.

"I _am_ hitting him!"

"Well hit him _harder_, cause it obviously ain't working all that well!" Gotta get my two cents in. Always.

"Lay the hell off, man, it's a damn scrimmage!" Harris yelled.

Which was not the smartest thing to say to Mr. Super-Athlete.

The next thing he knew, Ken was half off the ground "When I say _hit _him you fucking _hit _him! This is not a fucking _joke_! If you wanna play, boy, you better get your head outta your ass and into the game and _hit_ him!"

I don't remember anything but their faces and the smell of the field after it rained. God, I miss football. I remember Darrel stomping away, always so serious when it came to the game, I remember talking to the little dark-eyed kid: "He takes the game kinda serious."

"For some damn greaser."

And _damn, _but my back was up! "What'd you say?"

He gave me a conspiratory sneer. "Come on, Holden, he's a grease. I saw him after school with them."

"Boy, you are one dumb shit." Stupid little bastard. I hated that kid.

"What?"

I had him by the helmet, too, but the difference between me and Curtis was that I was already prepared to haul off and knock that boy into next week. "He ain't a soc. And he ain't a grease. And I ain't a soc. And I ain't a grease. And _nobody's_ a soc or a grease or a kike or a polack when we're on the goddamn field! Now get your _head_ outta your _ass_ and into the _game_!"

I shoved him and he went stumbling back to the field, looking over his shoulder at me like I was out of my head. And maybe I was.

"Grow the hell up! That's all kid stuff!" I yelled after him. My little thirteen year old brother and his friends, they were all into that class war stuff. It was just starting then, and everyone with half a brain thought it was damn stupid. Waste of time to go driving around jumping people. I lived, breathed, ate and drank football, and so did everyone else when Curtis was captain of the team. Football football football. Yeah, I went running round to Abby's on the weekends to see what I could get...man, Abby was one hot little number. Preacher's girl. Damn. But other than that, it was football.

But that was before they killed one of ours. Bob.

That was before everything. Everything starts after high school, that's what I say, none of that shit about the best years of your life.

Best years of my life. You know, after his parents died, we quit talking. It wasn't because of college. It wasn't because Abby fell for Mr. Boy of the Year. It wasn't because I was scared. It was because of him. His fault. Not mine.

Jesse hands me another beer.

I push it back at him and ask the question that's been on my mind since the second I set foot on that damn stupid lot under those damn stupid streetlights:

"What's he got to worry about? A couple damn kids and a job? A couple bills?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" I see Jimmy through the blur of the headlights, his voice hard and cold and dumb. Jimmy never understands anything.

"He ain't gotta worry with getting good enough marks so's not to get kicked out, he ain't got the damn RA following his ass around everywhere-" My voice grows and fills the car, and Jimmy's snorting out the window but I can't stop, "he ain't got Christine, the two-timing little broad, he ain't got old Prudence and Clyde sitting up in their mansion bitching him out bout upholding the goddamn family name!" Jesus, he's the son they always wanted! The goddamn golden boy! And I'm the clown, the goddamn clown, and it's _always_ the same- "He ain't got _shit-_"

Jesse slaps my knee and presses a beer into my hand. "Man, Paul, shut up, all right? You're sauced."

I shut up even though I'm not, he's wrong, I maybe am a little but I know what drunk is and this ain't it. I know what I am, and that's mad. All of a sudden I'm mad as hell, mad enough to turn around and go back and whip some greasy ass.

I'd kill him with my bare hands if I could. But I can't. I can't touch him.

Couldn't _ever _touch him.

Maybe I am jealous. Maybe I am bitter. Maybe I do wish I was the one who always won, always won at everything damn thing I touched, always won even if my parents were dead and I was working some stupid worthless job I was still gonna come out on top because everything I ever touched turned into pure, solid, soft-as-clay gold.

The blood in my mouth is metallic and hot, and I spit out the window again.

I should have known better, really. No one takes on the Golden Boy and wins.


	2. Chapter 2

"_To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless-it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable_."

- C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

_

* * *

_

Me, I'm a lion.

That's what I tell her. She asks if I'm a stallion, sweeping them long brown bangs out of her eyes and blinking at me.

I tell her I'm a lion and she shakes her head, throwing her hair back like a colt. It catches the dusty light coming through the living room window and shines like polished maple.

"You're a horse," she says, and laughs, and I shake my head back. She laughs again, and Steve comes out of the kitchen and asks what's so funny.

"Your girlfriend thinks I'm a horse," I tell him, and he gives us one of those looks and goes back into the kitchen. Evie giggles.

"What do you think I am?"

"A bear," I say immediately, and she swats at me even though I was being serious.

"What kinda thing is that to say to a girl, Soda Curtis? I ain't a _bear_," she snaps, wrinkling her nose at me.

"Well you sure ain't a butterfly."

"I'm a cat," she says coolly, "nice when I feel like it, mean when I don't."

"You got the claws, all right," Steve calls from the kitchen. Evie cuts her eyes in that direction.

"Shut up, Steve."

"What got you started on this animal stuff, anyhow?"

Evie lights up suddenly and starts talking with her hands. "The Cherokee believe that everyone has a spirit guide, like an animal that lives in you and helps you and stuff."

Steve snorts. "You made that up."

"I did not! I read it in my history book!"

"Did an Injun write your history book?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"What does anything have to do with anything?"

"Steve, don't start that on me again," Evie says tiredly, rolling her eyes to the ceiling.

"Wouldn't dream of it," he snaps, moving back out of sight, "why don't you go on back to doing your nails? That can't take up too much mental energy."

"You're moodier 'n my old lady on the rag," Evie replies, and I can't help but grin, cause damn if it ain't true lately. "And one of these days I'm gonna leave you for a cowboy. You takin' me out tomorrow night?"

"Why would I do a thing like that?"

"How about Friday?"

"All right."

"Where?"

"Anywhere you want."

"Anywhere?"

"Yeah," he says, which is as close as Steve gets to an apology, and Evie knows it. She stands up to leave and Steve comes and leans in the doorway again.

And then she brushes a speck of dust off her skirt and I watch her hands, and she's frowning a little like she's real concerned, and then she looks up and her eyes lock on Steve's and this real huge smile just spreads across her face, and I fall a little bit in love with her.

Girls are like that. They can be catty and hard and mean as all hell, but then they think you're not looking and they do something pretty- they smile real big or forget to flirt- and you're half in love with them.

Steve comes over to the couch and leans against the wall, looking out the window at Evie in her big blue coat, head bent against the wind. "You oughta give her a ride home."

"She can walk thirty yards down the road," he mutters, tapping a cigarette out of his box, "her legs work ok."

"She was funny, all juiced up about that animal stuff."

"Kid's crazy as they come," he cups a hand around the match he lights up out of habit, I guess, cause none of the windows are open.

"Uh huh. What kinda animal you think you are?"

"I'm a sheep," he keeps staring at the cigarette like it's gonna tell him something, "in wolf's clothing."

And I know he wants to get into one of his philosophy rants, but honestly I ain't in the mood for it so I try to set him up for a wisecrack. That works sometimes.

"What kinda animal you think I am?"

"A golden calf," he says flatly, "an idol and a sacrifice."

And I know right then that's the best anybody's gonna get out of him all day. "You been smoking that dope again?"

"Not today, no."

In the month and a half since Johnny and Dally died, Steve's turned a lot different. Not like Pony, who acts like he's walking around with his head even further up in the clouds than it used to be. Steve ain't like that. More like he's pretending to be like he was before only sometimes he slips up and starts talking about philosophy and poetry and I don't know what all, but he always gets real angry about it and ends up either picking a fight or running off to get stoned. He used to smoke grass every once in a while, with some guys from school, but in last month and a half from what I can tell, he mostly does his smoking by himself. And damned if that's a good thing.

"What are you looking all tensed up about?" Steve slides to the floor, slowly, sending rings of smoke higher and higher.

"Nothing."

It gets quiet for a minute, except for the sound of the wind whistling around outside. And in the way he looks at me all of the sudden, kinda sick and mad and bored all at once, I can tell exactly what he's thinking, cause I'm thinking it too.

"I miss 'em too, Steve."

"I don't miss anyone," he says all calm-like, stretching out on the floor, "not even a little. That's the thing. I ain't sad, I ain't mad, and I don't give a shit."

And I wish I could say I don't understand that, like I don't understand most of what he's being saying lately. But I do. I do understand, because I can feel it in the back of my head. I can see how that could happen. I can see how that could happen to me, and it ain't so far away.

But I can see how you can't let that happen, how you can't just stop living. Even when it don't seem worth it. You just can't, is all. Pony's been trying to do it lately and I can see that it's not working, that it won't work. But I ain't worried about Pony. He's too smart to keep it up for long.

Steve's smart too, but in a different way. Steve understands people. The kid's as smart as they come but he ain't so good at understanding people. Especially girls.

"You gonna be late again tomorrow?" Steve says suddenly, mostly just to break the silence.

"Probably. Why, the boss say something to you about it?"

"Say something about _you_? To me? Hell no."

"Aw, come on, Steve, he only likes me better 'cause I don't cuss him out on a regular basis." I can't help but grin, thinking about the last time Steve and Carl got into it. Every other month or so they pick something little to fight over and it'll go on for days, sometimes, with both of them secretly just liking the argument. That's what I see, anyhow. Carl hasn't fired him yet.

"He likes you better because you are better," Steve says flatly, sitting up off the floor. "You know that, right?"

And I wish he was joking. It would be so easy to make a joke out of it, but he's not, he's dead serious so I look up at the ceiling and shrug. "So what?"

"So nothing. Ain't your fault he thinks you're perfect." He's not jealous. I can tell when Steve is jealous, but he says it like it ain't no big deal.

"He doesn't think I'm perfect."

Steve laughs, soft and hard at the same time. "Soda, I've known you for ten years and I know better, and sometimes I still think that ain't nothing can touch you. It's like you're _all _light, like you don't have any darkness and I gotta tell you, buddy, I fucking _hate_ it."

And that's when I realize that I was right before, only I believed him when he lied because he's Steve and I'm about six kinds of stupid. I never smoked the stuff myself and I never hung around anybody who did, but still, I should have known better. "You're high."

"A little. Yeah." And it's quiet for a minute. Then: "Don't tell Evie."

"Evie ain't here, Steve."

"I know. Don't tell her. She thinks I quit."

She knows he hasn't. Evie knows the score. And Evie knows Steve. "All right."

"Thanks."

"Yeah," I say, standing up to go, "no problem." And his eyes are half-closed but I can tell that he's kinda worried. And I hate that. "You're gonna be all right, buddy," I can hear myself saying the words but they fall flatter than I meant them to. "You know?"

Steve lays down on the floor and stares up at me, smoke rising from his throat. "Sure," he says, and grins a little. I'm glad for that. That helps. Even if he doesn't really mean it. "Sure."

"See you tomorrow."

"Yeah."

And I walk out into the sunlight and the cold November wind.


End file.
